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“Oregon’s attorney general is seeking an order to stop federal agents from arresting people in Portland as the city continues to be convulsed by nightly protests that have gone on for seven weeks.” AP News
The right supports the federal enforcement, arguing that it is necessary due to local authorities’ failure to control the ongoing violence.
“Peaceful protesters don’t try to burn down federal courthouses or jails or the headquarters of a local police union, nor hurl rocks and bottles at cops, night after night for weeks on end — nor assault a police station: What’s going on in Portland is somewhere between riot and insurrection, and demands a strong federal response even if local officials are in denial…
“Questions do need asking about the feds’ tactics: Does the situation really require unmarked vehicles, and officers working without visible shield numbers or other clear ID or even uniforms? Yet the answers may be ‘yes and yes,’ if there are real concerns about law enforcers’ personal safety. Recent days have already seen the public release of some officers’ personal info — ‘doxing’ that invites harassment or worse at their homes… [But] the basic legal authority for the feds to act is beyond clear.”
Editorial Board, New York Post
“Wheeler says that federal law enforcement is further aggravating the situation and creating additional tensions where there shouldn’t be any. The problem with this assertion is that Portland protesters were acting aggressively before federal officers arrived in July. This has been going on for more than 57 days now. Protesters in the city were attacking local police officers and destroying private property long before the Trump administration sent the feds… If Wheeler wants federal officers to leave the city, then he must do what he should have done 57 days ago and put down these protests. Arrest violent agitators, investigate the groups behind them, and allow Portland’s officers to do their jobs.”
Kaylee McGhee, Washington Examiner
Some argue, “Right now, many of America’s cities are conducting social experiments in lawlessness, showing the rest of the country what happens when local leaders join calls to ‘defund the police’ and cower in the face of violence…
“In New York City, shootings during one week in June were up 358 percent over the previous year, while the number of police retirements has skyrocketed 411 percent — a vote of no confidence in the city’s left-wing leadership. In Atlanta, murders are up 86 percent. In Minneapolis, shootings are up 47 percent. In Philadelphia, shootings involving children are up 43 percent, and 96 percent of the victims are black. In Chicago, 106 people were shot during a single weekend in June…
“There is an argument for just letting those experiments play out. After all, we are told elections have consequences. Well, the people in those cities voted for weak Democratic mayors and city council members. Maybe if they experience the consequences of incompetent Democratic leadership, they’ll do what New Yorkers did in the 1990s and vote in tough-on-crime Republicans to restore law and order.”
Marc A. Thiessen, Washington Post
In an interview, “[Black Police Officer Jakhary] Jackson said people of color will frequently come up to speak to him during protest to ask him what he thinks about the death of George Floyd or some other issue. But inevitably when he tries to engage with these people, ‘someone white comes up ‘F the police. Don’t talk to him.'’… Officer Jackson described some of the other [experiences] he’s had with protesters: ‘I had taken an explosive, I had been hit with a full beer can, a rock in my chest, frozen water bottle had hit me’…
“‘It says something when you’re at a Black Lives Matter protest; you have more minorities on the police side than you have in a violent crowd,’ Jackson said. He continued, ‘And you have white people screaming at black officers ‘you have the biggest nose I’ve ever seen.’ You hear these things and you go ‘Are these people, are they going to say something to this person?’ No. ‘And that’s just one example. Having people tell you what to do with your life, that you need to quit your job, that you’re hurting your community but they’re not even a part of the community. Once again you as a privileged white person telling someone of color what to do with their life.’”
John Sexton, Hot Air
“Americans have largely forgotten the hard-won gains made in public safety since 1992, during the last peak of violent crime. If crime rises to the level of a generation ago, we would suffer 14,261 more murders (almost double those murdered in 2018), 580,460 more robberies, and 636,038 more aggravated assaults every year. And these crimes would be concentrated in our urban centers, specifically in working-class and poor neighborhoods. Think about that the next time you see those young vanguards of the proletariat, armed with law degrees and Molotov cocktails, visiting violence upon a city, only to return to their expensive lofts with a city view before daybreak.”
Chuck DeVore, The Federalist
The left opposes the federal enforcement, arguing that agents are making the violence worse and infringing upon protestors’ rights.
The left opposes the federal enforcement, arguing that agents are making the violence worse and infringing upon protestors’ rights.
“The Oregonian noted in a weekend report that while tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter protesters have taken to the streets throughout the past 54 days, the largest of those anti-racist demonstrations have remained peaceful…
“The smaller part of the protests that networks like Fox News and One America News have latched onto involves a 12-block area around the Multnomah County Justice Center and a federal courthouse… footage of those few blocks in downtown Portland has become a go-to segment at Fox News, which, in mid June, resorted to replaying the same May footage of the Minneapolis police precinct burning when its hosts apparently ran out of new material to portray American cities as perpetually on fire.”
Caleb Ecarma, Vanity Fair
“[Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon] tells us that the situation had actually been improving in recent days, and that the arrival of federal law enforcement has caused it to deteriorate… ‘If they were really interested in helping us, they would have had conversations first, and taken actions later,’ Brown said. ‘Instead it’s Ready, Fire, Aim.’…
“‘Dominate’ is the word that Trump himself used, on a call with governors last month, including Brown. ‘You have to dominate,’ Trump told them. It’s hard to overstate how irresponsible and reckless it is for the president and his homeland security chief to use such language. It could very well fuel a situation that combines fear, adrenaline, warrior-cop ideology, and the simple human psychology that says when you put someone in riot gear and tell them they’re headed into a volatile situation to confront violent extremists who are trying to destroy civil society, they’ll be on a hair trigger.”
Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman, Washington Post
“It is a fact that some individuals have used the protests in Portland as an opportunity to destroy property and inject chaos into the demonstrations… [But] Trump’s insistence on federalizing the situation on his own undermines Portlanders’ control of their own city, and exacerbates the violence far more than the protesters’ actions did…
“In launching Trump’s commission [on policing], Atty. Gen. William Barr included as a central question something that apparently baffles him as well as the president: Why is there a ‘continued lack of trust and respect for law enforcement’ in many communities? The answer is right under their noses. It is spread out on the street with George Floyd, it is shoved alongside protesters into unmarked federal police vans, it stands agog, with many of us, at actions to protect statues but shoot projectiles at people.”
Editorial Board, Los Angeles Times
“Oregon Public Broadcasting documented the allegations of a protester, Mark James Pettibone, who said he was walking home long after the demonstration Wednesday night, when several ‘guys in camo,’ grabbed him, threw him in an unmarked van, pulling his hat down over his eyes… The people detaining him never identified themselves, he said, or explained why he [was] being held…
“In 2014, the Civil Rights Division [of the Department of Justice] chastised the Ferguson, Missouri, police for allowing its officers to not display their names on their uniforms, calling it a ‘near-universal requirement of sound police practices.’ Not identifying the agency is far, far worse. There is zero accountability; no process for tracking abuses. It all but guarantees excesses… The Oregon ACLU's Jann Carson noted, ‘When we see people in unmarked cars forcibly grab someone off the street, we call it kidnapping.’”
Frida Ghitis, CNN
“Mike German, a former FBI agent now with the Brennan Center for Justice, told me the practice of officers identifying themselves before detaining suspects is equally important for officers’ safety as for citizens’. The person under suspicion may not believe federal officers are who they really are, instead believing they are members of militias or even just random vigilantes… [furthermore] the level of force must match the suspected offense — and that shooting protesters in the face with projectiles or detaining them in shadowy ways doesn’t do that.”
Alex Ward, Vox
“The danger to life, limb and democracy is evident. One protester, holding up a speaker, was shot in the head and needed facial reconstruction surgery after he picked up a smoke grenade fired in his direction and rolled it a few feet back whence it came. Another, a former Navy officer, was beaten, his hand broken, by a baton-wielding officer; his offense was to try to speak with the officers. It seems like luck that no one has been killed — so far.”
Editorial Board, Washington Post
